December Topics: A Formative Book
I have been sewing forever. I am never going to not be sewing. Which is why I am behind on topics and claiming a precious fifteen minutes to not be sewing omfg. ANYWAY.
yaysunshine (who can attest to the sewing as she has seen it in person as it evolves) asked me, "talk about a book that was very important/formative for you?"
THERE ARE SO MANY. I could list a dozen right off the top of my head, and in fact I wrestled with this question mentally for days because I was not sure which one was the most important and formative. Eventually I realized that i should've known the answer to that from the get-go, because it's been my favorite book for half my life.
I discovered Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince when I was sixteen, devoured it, reread it a dozen times, recommended it to lots of people (I think
yaysunshine actually currently holds my dead-tree copy), and it stands up very well to later re-reading. There are some flaws in it; obviously, it's not perfect. But it was the first "grown up" fantasy book I read that had politics and smart women being competent (SO FUCKING MANY smart women being competent, not all of whom were nice or generous people and THAT WAS OKAY they had flaws and personalities and varieties and they didn't always get along, and that was also okay!) It was also really fascinating to me the way that the protagonists do awful things and are not forgiven for them. The world was huge and fascinating and gorgeously built.
I loved the antagonist deeply, because he was smart and competent and at the end of the day, it seemed like it was even odds whether the antagonist or the protagonists would come out on top. I loved the language, and the scenery, and the ways different relationships were depicted. I loved that it wasn't just young attractive people who got to have relationships. I loved that not all relationships were treated the Exact Same Way.
Basically it was a hugely formative book because it felt real, like there were many answers to all the questions I wanted to ask, and I still love it to bitty bitty bits and find it hugely influential both in terms of the kinds of fantasy books I like to read, and in terms of what I like to write.
The rest of Rawn's work doesn't grab my throat and heart quite the same way; while I respect the remaining 5 books in the series, they never affected me quite the same way. I liked Ambrai well enough (I actually want to re-read it and see if I like it better now), but not quite as much. And her newest series, with the glass bits and whatever, really pissed me off in the first book because WHERE ARE MY AWESOME LADIES GODDAMN IT THIS IS WHAT I RELY ON YOU FOR. But whatever. Dragon Prince is my book to end all books, basically.
I've posted this at http://lassarina.dreamwidth.org/1102192.html and you may comment there or here. On Dreamwidth, this entry has
comments.
yaysunshine (who can attest to the sewing as she has seen it in person as it evolves) asked me, "talk about a book that was very important/formative for you?"
THERE ARE SO MANY. I could list a dozen right off the top of my head, and in fact I wrestled with this question mentally for days because I was not sure which one was the most important and formative. Eventually I realized that i should've known the answer to that from the get-go, because it's been my favorite book for half my life.
I discovered Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince when I was sixteen, devoured it, reread it a dozen times, recommended it to lots of people (I think
yaysunshine actually currently holds my dead-tree copy), and it stands up very well to later re-reading. There are some flaws in it; obviously, it's not perfect. But it was the first "grown up" fantasy book I read that had politics and smart women being competent (SO FUCKING MANY smart women being competent, not all of whom were nice or generous people and THAT WAS OKAY they had flaws and personalities and varieties and they didn't always get along, and that was also okay!) It was also really fascinating to me the way that the protagonists do awful things and are not forgiven for them. The world was huge and fascinating and gorgeously built.
I loved the antagonist deeply, because he was smart and competent and at the end of the day, it seemed like it was even odds whether the antagonist or the protagonists would come out on top. I loved the language, and the scenery, and the ways different relationships were depicted. I loved that it wasn't just young attractive people who got to have relationships. I loved that not all relationships were treated the Exact Same Way.
Basically it was a hugely formative book because it felt real, like there were many answers to all the questions I wanted to ask, and I still love it to bitty bitty bits and find it hugely influential both in terms of the kinds of fantasy books I like to read, and in terms of what I like to write.
The rest of Rawn's work doesn't grab my throat and heart quite the same way; while I respect the remaining 5 books in the series, they never affected me quite the same way. I liked Ambrai well enough (I actually want to re-read it and see if I like it better now), but not quite as much. And her newest series, with the glass bits and whatever, really pissed me off in the first book because WHERE ARE MY AWESOME LADIES GODDAMN IT THIS IS WHAT I RELY ON YOU FOR. But whatever. Dragon Prince is my book to end all books, basically.
I've posted this at http://lassarina.dreamwidth.org/1102192.html and you may comment there or here. On Dreamwidth, this entry has
comments.